A Mother's Intuition
by Georgiaish
Summary: The Queen meets the woman who stole her daughter from her. Post- movie.


**Disclaimer – I don't own Tangled; it belongs to Disney. I'm just borrowing its characters for this fanfic, which I'm not profiting from because it's a fanfic! **

**Summary – The Queen meets the woman who stole her daughter from her. Post- movie.**

**Ok, this is just a one-shot that I imagined in my head and thought I would write. In the film Gothel withers away into dust after Eugene cuts Rapunzel's hair, but what if she**_** didn't**_** die? What if she was captured and bought into the Kingdom of Corona for trial?**

**Enjoy (and review!)**

**

* * *

**

I had never been down into the dungeons before; it's not the place for a Lady of status, of course. But when they told us they had caught the woman that had stolen our daughter from us, I had to know. I had to know why, how could she?

I never knew that a woman could be so heartless to another woman, and feel no remorse. Was she even a mother? Did she understand how it felt to have one's life taken from her?

The guards led me down further into the darkness and I got an unnerving feeling of claustrophobia, and began to wish that I had Harold here beside me, holding my hand and guiding me safely through these unfamiliar walls. How stupid I had been, telling him this was something I had to do alone. The minutes stretched on forever as I walked, down, round, deeper into the winding chambers. The dark, stone walls and wooden doors grumbled and moaned, their echoes bouncing off the walls and dying away in the damp.

Suddenly, the four guards stopped outside a damp wooden door with a square of bars at the level of my feet. For a moment we all stood, silently, wondering who was to make the first move, whether it be to open the door or run back in the direction we had came. I preferred the latter.

Then the tall guard, with the comical moustache and kind face, stood back and unlocked the door.

The cell was darker than it had been in the chambers; there was no torch against the wall offering light as there had been. For a moment I was blinded, completely blind against the sheet of blackness all around me. _She _was in here.

As I let my eyes accustom to the dark, I tried to listen for any other sounds of life, other than my own shallow breathing. It was only a moment before I heard another's raggedy breaths and saw the silhouette of a person in the bottom corner of the room.

I backed up against the opposite wall and vaguely felt the damp and dirt soak against my dress, but I concentrated on the lightening figure before me.

There was nothing distinctive about this woman, nothing that would make you look twice and question her morals.

Her greying hair was matted about her face, the dark curls unkempt due to the lack of upkeep, and I supposed, age. She was dressed in mere rags of red and black that swallowed her up so that I could see no more of the woman that stole my life from me. She was of an uncertain age, one that looked like a young woman that had reached the age at which she could very well have been married, with two or three children to her name. But there was no ring, however, and no children but one that was not her own. Yet, more closely observed, her face was etched with deep wrinkles around her broken lips and closed eyes. Her complexion was fair, but not in the innocent youthful way. No, this woman was old, or seemed older than her years.

Jealousy. That was the only thing I felt when I saw her, pathetic and worthless, across the small room. She was in prison, and would be forever, it seemed, and I was the Queen of a thriving, beautiful Kingdom whom had been rejoicing over the return of its lost Princess. She was nobody and I had everything.

And yet I was jealous of her.

For this woman was the woman whom my daughter called mother for eighteen years, while I sat in the empty nursery reading joyous children's books in my despair. The woman who sang Happy Birthday to my daughter, whilst I solemnly unleashed a lantern into the sky, every year for eighteen years. The woman who taught her everything she knows while I taught her nothing. The woman that kept my daughter from me. For _eighteen years. _

The woman she loves as her mother.

Bitterness. Deep, crushing bitterness enclosed me and I wanted to run at her, hit her, _kill _her for what she did to my family, my Kingdom and me.

And then she spoke.

"You really think that locking me up will make a difference?" her voice was quiet and melodic, her words laced with malice and mockery. And I didn't know what to say. Gone was the unfamiliar feeling of hatred and now all I wanted to do was run.

The words left my mouth before I could control myself. "You deserve to hang by the neck until dead." I felt hot tears welling up in my eyes and a lump at the back of my throat began to burn raw, as I recited her likely punishment. I would not cry in front of this woman; not give her the satisfaction.

"Again, will that really make any difference? Now, really?" And I knew that it would not, and yet the thought of it was too tempting, far more appealing than it should have been. The thought of this woman in the gallows gives me an unfamiliar bought of dark pleasure; I'm sure there is nothing I want more.

After Rapunzel had been stolen, and the initial shock and devastation had faded into a permanent dull ache, all I wanted was to find her kidnapper and wring their neck. Not royal thinking... call it a mother's intuition, if you will.

"I just did what was right for her, always. I'm her mother." I could feel the smile, the spite through the dark.

"No. She is my daughter, never yours. She was _never _yours." I spat at her, the malice coming easier than anything I've ever said. Here, in this cell, I wasn't a Queen. I was just a mother, robbed of the most precious thing in her life, so why should I be merciful?

"But she was, for her whole life. I'm the only mother she knows. The only one she will ever think of as her mother." And then I couldn't take anymore. I darted at her and pulled up my left hand before letting it slap against her face. Hard.

"You _bitch!_"Then she was falling, back to the floor. My hand was still poised over her, my skin stinging and wedding ring seemed to dig slightly into my ring finger. My chest was heaving; was it wrong to enjoy this so?

A hand grasped onto my wrist, and I turned around.

What a scene for the guards to have intruded on. Two women, two mothers stood in the centre of the room, one glaring and one staggering, clinging to her cheek and cursing.

"Come, Your Majesty" the guards pulled gently at my arm, and I was led reluctantly out of the door.

It was so much less than she deserved; a slap and a lifetime imprisonment. But I can't dwell on it now; Rapunzel should just about be waking and I've got eighteen years to catch up on.

And I don't plan on wasting anymore time.

A Mother's Intuition


End file.
